three decades

For better or for worse I've managed skip along a social existence for pretty much three decades, without a single date. I feel a midge proud of this. My avoidance skills are top notch. Each relationship I've had has happened by accident, date free. Most have been long term and emotionally complex. I want to create an ink stamp that I can put on the back of my hand in day glo yellow that says ...100 percent date free. dates are like asbestos, except they should be avoided at risk of damaging disposition.

Dates imply that something is sought. They imply that I'm looking for a random shared moment to turn into seven babies and a bugaboo running stroller. I will never be seduced into partaking. It's a far cry from the 40 year old virgin, but who says fun has to involve dates or relationships? This sentiment is hard to convey in Israel where everyone tends to assume that everyone else belongs in a relationship, in which case my presence goes against the communal grain. The women here are beautiful and most get snapped up and married away young. It almost happened to me too when I was young, not so beautiful but young and bright eyed. I hadn't yet learned how to say no and ended up engaged with a full pomp and circumstance wedding from hell planned and all. I narrowly escaped from what would have been a stifling marriage to someone who I never loved.

Mind you, if I had married him then I wouldn't have met and loved the person who would then go on to break my heart into a million shiny fragments. Which is the worse of two evils? At least I've known what it feels like to truly, deeply, and sincerely love someone. It was the first time I'd ever felt that type of love, the most injurious to have when it's not at all reciprocated. If love like that can break someone apart then maybe it's best to just forgo it to begin with, and then save on the life rehab time. Sex is known to be great without any ties or emotional commitment. I can kick a man out of my bed at 3am, sending him packing so that we don't wake up next to each other. I can be the man in the equation.